DjVu Editions Classic Literature (83 Books)

The Djvu Collection offers about 250 eBooks. Each eBook was designed for an optimal eBook readership experience. The Djvu eBooks are available in either a PDF format or a Djvu format. The Djvu format is an innovate way to read eBooks through your Internet browser.

By: Jane Austen

Excerpt: Chapter I; ABOUT thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet?s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousa...

By: Jane Austen

Excerpt: Chapter I; IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. ?My dear Mr. Bennet,? said his lady to him one day, ?have you heard that Net...

By: Jane Austen

Excerpt: Chapter 1; THE family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner, as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeep...

By: Various

Excerpt: Book of Genesis; Chapter 1 -- In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.

By: Various

Excerpt: Genesis; Chapter 1 -- In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

By: William Blake

Excerpt: SONGS OF INNOCENCE; INTRODUCTION -- Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ??Pipe a song about a Lamb!?? So I piped with merry cheer. ??Piper, pipe that song again;?? So I piped: he wept to hear. ??Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer!?? So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. ??Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.?? So he...

By: Thomas Carlyle

Excerpt: CHAPTER I; PRELIMINARY -- CONSIDERING our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times especially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or dog-hole in Natu...

By: Lewis Carroll

Excerpt: CHAPTER I; Down the Rabbit-Hole -- ALICE WAS BEGINNING to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ?and what is the use of a book,? thought Alice ?without pictures or conversation?? So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the ...

By: Lewis Carroll

Excerpt: ONE THING was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it: --it was the black kitten?s fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it couldn?t have had any hand in the mischief. Through the Looking Glass The way Dinah washed her children?s faces was this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, an...

By: Geoffrey Chaucer

Excerpt: The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, That was the kyng Priamus sone of Troye, In louynge how his auentures fellen ffro wo to wele, and after out of ioie, My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye. Thesiphone, thow help me for tendite Thise woful vers that wepen as I write. To the clepe I, thow goddesse of torment, Thow cruwel furie, sorwynge evere in peyne, Help me that am the sorwful instrument That helpeth loveres, as I kan, to pleyne; ffor wel sit it, the sothe ...

By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Excerpt: Easter Holidays; Hail! festal Easter that dost bring Approach of sweetly-smiling spring, When Nature?s clad in green: When feather?d songsters through the grove With beasts confess the power of love And brighten all the scene. Now youths the breaking stages load That swiftly rattling o?er the road To Greenwich haste away: While some with sounding oars divide Of smoothly-flowing Thames the tide All sing the festive lay. With mirthful dance they beat the ground, T...

By: Richard Henry Dana

Excerpt: CHAPTER I; DEPARTURE -- The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o?clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years? voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire chan...

By: Daniel Defoe

Excerpt: THE PREFACE; If ever the story of any private Man?s Adventures in the World were worth making Publick, and were acceptable when Publish?d, the Editor of this Account thinks this will be so. The Wonders of this Man?s Life exceed all that (he thinks)is to be found extant; the Life of one Man being scarce capable of a greater Variety. The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious Application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always ap...

By: Charles Dickens

Excerpt: PREFACE; I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December, .

By: Charles Dickens

Excerpt: FIRST QUARTER; THERE are not many people --and as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down again --there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I don?...

By: John Donne

Excerpt: VARIABLE, and therfore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz?d with a sodaine change, and alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and ayre, and exercises, and we hew, and wee polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long and regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, overthrow...

By: John Donne

Excerpt: TO THE READER [Preface; to the Ist edition () by Richard Redmer, the publisher.]; This Sermon was, by Sacred Authoritie, stiled the Authors owne funeral Sermon. Most fitly: whether wee respect the time, or the matter. It was preached not many dayes before his death; as if, having done this, there remained nothing for him to doe, but to die: And the matter is, of Death; the occasion and subject of all funerall Sermons. It hath beene observed of this Reverent Man,...

By: John Donne

Excerpt: JEALOSIE; FOND woman, which would?st have thy husband die, And yet complain?st of his great jealosie; If swolne with poyson, hee Jay in?his last bed, His body with a sere-barke covered, Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can The nimblest crocheting Musitian, Ready with loathsome vomiting to spue His Soule out of one hell, into a new, Made deafe with his poore kindreds howling cries, Begging with few feign?d teares, great legacies, Thou would?st not weepe...

By: John Donne

Excerpt: THE GOOD-MORROW; I WONDER by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we lov?d? were we not wean?d till then? But suck?d on countrey pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den? T?was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desir?d, and got, t?was but a dreame of thee. And now good morrow to our waking soules, Which watch not one another out of feare; For love, all love of other sights controules, And makes ...

By: John Donne

Excerpt: Holy Sonnets; I THOU hast made me, And shall thy worke decay? Repaire me now, for now mine end doth haste, I runne to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday; I dare not move my dimme eyes any way, Despaire behind, and death before doth cast Such terrour, and my feeble flesh doth waste By sinne in it, which it t?wards hell doth weigh; Onely thou art above, and when towards thee By thy leave I can looke, I rise againe; But our o...